Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 05/08/2004 18:38, MarianneLuban AT aol.com wrote:

> I hope some people here are more knowledgeable in Greek than I am because I 
> want to make certain of some passages from the Greek text of Josephus.  It has 
> to do with his reference to a certain "Amenophis", a wiseman, universally 
> accepted to be a well-documented actual person from AE, Amenhotep son of Hapu.  
> When Josephus first mentions the wiseman he writes, "Amenophis patros de 
> Paapios" and then later 
> "Amenophis ton Paapios", both translated as "Amenophis son of Paapis.  I know 
> that
> "patros" means "father", but I can't understand the presence of "de" in the 
> phrase.  Also, I think "ton" can mean "the son of" but also just plain "of".  
> Anybody?
>
>  
"de" means "and" or "but" but is positioned after the first word 
following it. So "Amenophis patros de Paapios" means something like 
"Amenophis and of the father (of) Paapis" - assuming that "Paapios" is a 
somewhat unusual genitive form from Paapis. "ton" is a form of the 
article, but it doesn't make sense here because it is accusative, but 
"Amenophis ... Paapios" may mean "Amenophis [son] of Paapis", with "son" 
implied which is quite common. Of course the whole thing could be more 
clear from the Greek context, especially as Greek word order is very 
free and different phrases can interleave with one another.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/